Police officers talk to members of the public at a park in Northampton, as Northants Police announce they are toughening up their social distancing enforcement, as the UK continues in lockdown to help curb the spread of Covid-19.

A leading professor has said social distancing measures during the coronavirus lockdown are “working better than first predicted”.

On Thursday, Dominic Raab said lockdown measures, in force since 23 March, would not come to an end soon, saying a reduction in case admissions would need to be seen before relaxing restrictions.

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“There is some preliminary evidence in terms of contact surveys, in terms of data from companies like Google about how people move, that we have seen even larger reductions in normal behaviour, contact, than we would have dared hope.

“That is good news but we have still got to see that reflected in case numbers coming down.”

A teenager draws a rainbow and an NHS logo on the wall of her house in Liverpool in support of the NHS as the UK continues in lockdown to help curb the spread of the coronavirus. (PA)

Ferguson suggested that when the time came the restrictions could be eased in stages - but said more testing would be needed to ensure the virus was kept in check.

“Without doubt measures will be targeted, probably by age, by geography, and we will need to introduce – in my view – much larger levels of testing at a community level to really be able to isolate cases and more effectively identify where transmission has happened,” he said.

Also speaking on the programme, Professor Paul Cosford, Public Health England’s director for health protection, suggested one of the first measures could be to allow schools to re-open.

He said: “We do know that children are at very low risk of getting complications from this disease. The importance of children’s education, children being in school, is paramount,”

“I could conceive of circumstances in which some of the restrictions are lifted sooner and some are lifted later.”

“Just for now, we are getting on top of this but we have got an awfully long way to go and it is absolutely critical that we continue with all the actions that are required of us.”

Dominic Raab said lockdown restrictions would not come to an end for some time. (AP)